


Arrangements and Engagements

by notoneforreality



Series: QB-B3 007 Fest 2020 [4]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: (not explicit) - Freeform, 007 Fest, 007 Fest 2020, Arranged Marriage, Bond is posh, Happy Ending, M/M, Misgendering, Misunderstandings, Prompt Fill, Q is posh, Team Q Branch, Trans Character, Trans Q, Transphobia, against his will, explosions as expressions of emotion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24826138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notoneforreality/pseuds/notoneforreality
Summary: Q was hoping that this particular aspect of upper class society would never apply to him, but now his parents are marrying him off before he can disgrace the family name, and there are so many reasons that he hates this whole situation. Then Bond walks in, and he can't decide if this is better or worse.James has been flirting with Q for a year, but when that falls through he ends up involved in his old family social circle, and something's wrong. While he's not in the field, he might look into this marriage proposal more closely.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Series: QB-B3 007 Fest 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1795726
Comments: 16
Kudos: 163





	Arrangements and Engagements

**Author's Note:**

> Written for--  
> 4th July: Trans Character day;  
> This prompt from the 2019 anon list: 'Person A is F-M trans but their parents deny it and are looking to trick someone into marrying their troublesome offspring. Person B has a crush on a guy but knows it won't work out. Agrees to marry Person A for business reasons. Only later finds out that Person A, when presenting how they prefer, is the person they have a crush on.'

Q hides in the workshop and spends four hours causing increasingly large explosions in an attempt to exercise his frustrations. It doesn’t work, which is probably because the hot, thundering feeling in the pit of his stomach isn’t so much frustration as fury.

There’s no one in Q-Branch — by some miracle, Double-oh Two is the only agent in the field tonight and his comms are being handled by someone up in Tanner’s realm — so Q is free to set fires to his heart’s content without anyone bothering him.

When the door creaks open, Q nearly brains himself on the table as he drops his head in irritation.

“There wasn’t supposed to be anyone down here,” he says to the metal workbench.

“You’re down here.” Bond’s voice is low and amused. “And your hair’s about to catch fire.” His footsteps are steady and measured as he strolls closer.

“Let it,” Q muttered. Maybe if he burns his hair off and says it was a work accident, his mother will stop complaining about her child’s willful disobedience in regards to hair. 

Maybe, if he burns his hair off, whatever fool his parents have talked into this marriage will leave him at the altar.

Bond doesn’t let Q’s hair burn. He locates the fire extinguisher and puts out the flames, then sets a hand on Q’s shoulder.

“What are you doing down here at two in the morning?”

“What are you doing in the building at two in the morning?” Q counters.

“Looking for my favourite boffin, of course.”

It’s not an answer, but Q is tired enough that he lets it pass. When Bond pulls, gently, Q goes, allowing himself to be wrapped into Bond’s chest. They stand and breathe together, in the echoey silence of the workshop, and Q is only vaguely aware of the fact that he’s shaking.

It’s not...new, the physical closeness. Mostly, they flirted and quipped and bantered and irritated everyone by being far too obvious and occasionally verging on shameless. It had been a joke, to start, and then Q had hop, tripped, and fallen for Bond right in the middle of one of his harebrained schemes trying to get at Spectre’s latest figurehead.

There had been a faint chance that Bond liked Q back, including the testimony of several Q-Branch employees who were far too invested in the whole situation, as well as Q’s own observations, even after being thoroughly scrutinized and stripped of all hopeful bias.

Then, three weeks ago, Bond had come home from somewhere in North America with what seemed like half his arm off, and fought the nurses for an hour until Q stepped into the room and he’d just sort of drooped. 

Q held Bond’s hand until the anesthetic dragged him under, and then sat with him when the nurses were done. It had all been strangely soft, too real, and Q had panicked and escaped just as Bond’s eyes were fluttering open.

The softness had stuck, though, and there had been more gentle touches, and a couple of hugs.

Q had hoped, and then he’d gone home yesterday and his parents told him they were arranging a marriage ‘to find someone who’ll stop you causing any more damage to this family, young lady.’

Then he came straight back to Six and messed around with explosives.

And now he’s crying on Bond’s shirt.

Shit, he’s crying on Bond’s shirt.

It takes effort to wrench himself away, but he manages it, and attempts to straighten his clothes. Not that it makes much difference: he usually showers after work, but that hadn’t been an option. The lack of change is pulling at his chest, too, because he’s been wearing his binder for too long, too afraid to leave it off in Vauxhall Cross and too done with everything to run any chance of being misgendered. If that were to happen here, at his job where he’s known as a man and respected by most people who know him, he might just crumple.

“What’s wrong?” Bond asks, and his eyes are as soft as his voice. It nearly breaks Q again.

“You know I care for you,” Q says, and then has to swallow around a lump in his throat several times. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to cause any misunderstandings.”

There’s a long silence, in which Q’s voice stops working. Bond’s hand comes up to Q’s shoulder again, but this time Q steps back. His legs hit the table and he winces.

Bond frowns. “I care about you, too.”

That’s worse. Q has to take three deep, shaking breaths, before he can say, “I’m engaged.”

‘Engaged’ isn’t quite the right word. Fancy arranged marriages take some time to set up, even if his parents already have someone in mind — a vague, faraway part of Q’s mind wonders how much they’d give as a dowry — but that would take too long to explain, and Q reckons he’s got about a month and a half, maximum, going by how determined his parents are.

Bond stills. His expression is still soft at the edges but there’s nothing behind it, no hint of his thoughts or feelings. 

“I’m sorry,” Q says, again, a little helplessly.

“It’s okay,” Bond says, in a voice that matches his face. “I hope you and your partner are happy.”

Q hopes his ‘partner’ dies ten seconds after the wedding so Q can run off with all the benefits of being a married person, free from the control of his family, and none of the downsides, free of the actual husband.

It’s perhaps a little uncharitable to think that way of a man who has no idea what he’s getting into, but Q is hurting and seething with rage and Bond is leaving, walking stiffly out of the room, and Q can’t stop him because that wouldn’t be fair.

None of this is fair.

Q turns around, so he doesn’t have to watch Bond go, and spots the earliest prototype of the exploding pen sat on the table, cheerfully winking at him in the fluorescent light as though it wasn’t a symbol of everything that had just blown up in Q’s face.

He blows up the pen, too, out of spite.

* * *

James goes back to his flat and makes half a bottle of scotch disappear before he confronts the letter on the coffee table. It was the reason he’d made the forty minutes walk to Vauxhall in the middle of the night, originally to spend time at the range to think things over, and then, when he heard that the Quartermaster was in the building, to talk to Q.

Q is engaged. James turns the thought over in his head as he turns the tumbler over in his hand, considering both with equal intensity. He's pretty sure they’d been flirting for the better part of a year now, and at the beginning of the month things had shifted in a direction that James had expected to end in a relationship. 

That’s a newish concept, too, the idea of wanting a relationship, of being willing to take it as slowly as Q needed, following Q’s leads in their dynamic with the same effort he put into ignoring Q’s lead in the field. 

They were getting somewhere, and now Q’s engaged. 

James hadn’t even asked about the identity of Q’s future spouse, too overwhelmed by the entirely unfamiliar sensation of being hurt by a rejection. He’s been rejected before, about a thousand times, although he takes care to keep up his charmer, playboy reputation, and he knows the disappointment that goes with it. Q’s gentle, helpless explanation, though, had felt like a punch to his chest, and he’s had enough of them to know the feeling.

He sets the tumbler down on the coffee table with a clink and picks up the open envelope to stare at it. He knew who it was from before he even opened it; there are approximately twelve people he knew who would still send a paper letter, and only one couple who have a monogrammed ‘E’ printed onto the point of the envelope flap.

The Everleighs have a daughter they want to marry off, apparently, and they’d like to marry her off to James, specifically.

There are many things wrong with the whole situation, not least of which had been his budding relationship with Q, and is now Q’s seemingly established relationship with a stranger.

A different man would just leave it, perhaps write a polite refusal to the Everleighs and hope that would be it, then get on with his busy and dangerous life.

James ends up with an empty bottle of scotch and a full sheet of good quality writing paper folded into perfect thirds and slipped into a stamped, addressed envelope.

Then he goes outside, where the street is stirring for morning, and shoves it into the nearest red postbox.

Then he goes and falls asleep on his couch and doesn’t wake up until Moneypenny calls him, furious that he’s late for a briefing.

That’s how he ends up in the Everleighs’ townhouse a week later, ushered into the parlour by a butler and greeted warmly by Mr and Mrs Everleigh. They look like the sort of couple whose children went to the same playschool as Prince George goes to now: John in an immaculately pressed pale blue shirt and navy dress trousers, and Amanda in a pretty green tea dress with matching cardigan.

“James, darling!” Amanda exclaims, and kisses the air beside his cheeks. James makes the appropriate gestures back, then claps hands with John in a hearty handshake.

“Ruddy hell, Bond, where have you been all this time?” John says, his voice as jovial as his handshake. “We haven’t seen you since the Alton’s do for New Years Twenty-Seventeen!”

“I’ve been working abroad a lot for my job, you know how it is,” James says, pulling on the role of a british toff with ease. He doesn’t have to work hard for it to be believable; John and Amanda have known him since they were all left for the nannies to deal with at the fancy dinner parties while their parents got drunk and pretended they were enjoying themselves. They were both older than he was, but not old enough to be granted the exalted honour of attending the party.

They sit on couches either side of an ornate, low, table, and exchange various pleasantries for a while, and talk about the people the Everleighs call friends and James calls family acquaintances. James learns that many more of their social circle is engaged or married than he was last aware of, which brings the conversation round to the purpose of the visit.

“Well, we simply couldn’t abide the thought of you rattling around on your own,” Amanda gushes. “You’re getting on in age! You need someone to look after you.”

James doesn’t raise his eyebrow.

John chuckles and rests a hand on Amanda’s knee. “I know what it’s like to be off around the world and not have anyone to come home to, so when our Beatrice mentioned marriage, we thought we’d write you straight away.”

“You’re lucky you caught me home,” James says, because it’s the only true thing he can say right now without being at least minorly insulting.

“She’s an absolute darling,” Amanda says, with a strange little twist to her mouth. “She’s away at university at the moment — every girl needs a hobby, you know — but we have photos, and she’ll be home for the Easter holidays in a couple of weeks for you to meet her in person.”

Amanda shows James a picture of a young girl with long, dark hair curling down past her shoulders. The dress she’s wearing is a blue that compliments her skin and her eyes and fits her very well, but she looks uncomfortable in it. 

At the back of James’ mind, two thoughts spark against each other, and James firmly ignores the one attempting to compare Beatrice to Q, instead exploring the suspicion that something’s wrong here.

On the opposite couch, Amanda and John pose, a perfect married couple in their perfect outfits, against the background of their perfect parlour.

Wrongness prickles under James’ skin.

It’s a look at the second picture that gives him more of an idea. Amanda and John are perfectly posed, as they always are, and Anthony adds to the picture, standing tall and proud in his fitted suit, his photograph smile pressed neatly onto his face. Beatrice is in another beautiful gown — a wine colour, this time, to match John’s pocket square and Anthony’s tie and Amanda’s garnet necklace — and she looks just as uncomfortable as she did in the first photo. She’s even more out of place, in this one, the awkwardness highlighted by the exactness of the rest of the family.

He quietly tucks his suspicions into a mental pocket, and continues the conversation with as much cheer and casual classism as is necessary to secure an invitation to meet Miss Beatrice Everleigh. The Everleigh’s will host a dinner party two weeks from now with most of their social group and both their children in attendance, with the expectation that it will be followed by a discussion about the logistics of the marriage, and then a formal announcement of Beatrice and James’ engagement.

* * *

Q doesn’t get a month and a half. He doesn’t even get a full month. Three weeks after his parents announced their intentions of arranging a marriage, he is made to take a day off work in order to prepare for a dinner party at which he will meet his future husband. 

He’d tried to resist, saying that he’s needed at work, but his parents are under the impression that he’s working as a secretary somewhere, and have told all their friends that he’s at university in an attempt to hide the shame of their child having such a common job. They argue that he shouldn’t have a real job at all, and instead spend all his time socialising with ‘right sort of people’. 

Either way, being a secretary doesn’t come with a suggestion of being indispensable, and so Q has no excuse as to why he can’t take the day off. It’s already hard enough to explain why he spend such long and odd hours out of the house, although Tony is at least on his side and has a whole cast of friends that Q is out with whenever their parents ask. So he runs the gauntlet of Tanner’s suspicion and Moneypenny’s disappointment and R’s blatant curiosity, and tells them all that he’s very sorry but he has a non-negotiable family event.

Awful, horrible, traumatising things happen at Q’s job, sometimes, and none of them are worse than this. Q’s been trained to withstand torture — he’s never been an agent, but at his level, he’s an asset and that comes with risks and security measures in place to minimise those risks — but that wasn’t as bad as what he’s being put through now.

His mother all but straps Q to the chair as she applies atrocious amounts of make-up, including a foul tasting, sticky lipstick in a red that looks exactly like blood. How does Eve stand it? It looks good on her — ‘painted with the blood of my enemies and looking good whilst doing it’ — but Q hates it with every fibre of his soul. He hates his parents, too, and would disappear them as soon as possible if it weren’t for the fact that Tony would be a little upset.

He’s wearing a bra and horrifically uncomfortable knickers already, hidden under a fluffy pink dressing gown, and the dress his mother has picked out is hanging on the front door of the wardrobe, a purple silk thing that Q recognises from about fifteen recent honeypot missions. He’s pretty sure Double-oh Three wore the same design in gold last week.

Four hours after the torture began, Q is pulled from his room by his mother and paraded in front of Tony and their father. The makeup on his face feels an inch thick, the wires of the bra and the flowers in his hair are cutting in, and the fit of the dress makes it hard to breathe. Then his mother produces a pair of high heels and Q wishes fervently that there were a knife in them so he could stab everyone and make his escape before the party starts.

“You look wonderful, darling!” his mother gushes. “Far better than any of your silly boys’ clothes.”

“She looks acceptable,” his father says, mouth in a flat line. “Behave yourself, or you’ll regret it.”

Q imagines himself killing everyone in the house and fleeing to live in the tunnels beneath Vauxhall like a hermit, but then he nearly laughs thinking about how he’s been spending too much time around Bond, and the thought makes him feel sick again.

Their parents go down to finalise preparations, and Q and Tony are left, staring at each other.

“I’m sorry, Q,” Tony says. “I wish I knew how to stop them.”

Blaming Tony won’t help anything, because he is on Q’s side, and their both equally terrified of their parents. It had taken all Q’s courage just to announce that he was getting a job, and he’d been locked in the attic for thirty hours for it, until he came up with an argument to justify it. And he’d never been struck, not like Tony.

“It’s okay,” Q says, even though none of this situation is okay. “As long as you promise to alibi me when I put poison in my husband’s dinner.”

Tony’s laugh is quiet, and he sobers up far too quickly. “Come on, we should go down.”

They go down, and guests arrive at seven, and Q furiously meditates on his torture training because he won’t survive if he tries to act like this is normal. A million faces, both familiar and strange, are introduced and summarily forgotten, but Q manages to hold conversations with them through mental muscle memory of faces attached to files.

At eight, Q’s mother turns up and steers him into the library, pushing him down onto the couch and giving a hissed warning that he better be on his best behaviour because his future husband has just arrived. Then she turns her beaming party smile on and stands at the edge of the couch, ready to greet the man.

The door opens, admitting Q’s father, followed by…

Shit.

It’s Bond.

Q’s stomach drops out and his smile only stays in place thanks to twenty odd years of having it drilled into him. He can’t decide whether this is better or worse.

* * *

Q isn’t at work on the day of the dinner party, and James can’t work out why he’s so bothered by it, when he’s already made up his mind to leave Q be. R says Q has a family event, and a horrible, silky voice at the back of his skull whispers about it perhaps being Q’s wedding day.

James shoves the voice away and goes down to bother Alec in the range, instead. The spend two hours down there, during which James ends up confessing his plans for the evening.

“God, I always forget you’re actually a bloody toff,” Alec says.

“You’re posh enough yourself.” James hits a flying disc dead centre.

“Nah, I just pretend.” Alec puts three holes in the silhouette of a head and squints at them. “Are you really going to get married?”

Two more bangs leave the silhouette blind, and James drops his gun. “I’m not planning on it,” he says. He still doesn’t know why he even bothered replying to the Everleighs’ letter, but he’d been drunk and maudlin. “But something’s wrong, and I might as well check it out.”

“Sure. If you say so.” Alec gives James a look, with a raised eyebrow and a smirk, then plants another bullet in the middle of the silhouette’s forehead. 

James steers the conversation back to safer topics, like arguing which of them has been worst maimed in their careers, and when they leave to grab lunch together, James thinks he’s got away with it.

“What about Q?” Alec asks in the middle of the cafeteria.

“What about Q?” James doesn’t let his voice give anything away. He’s improved his pretense, in the last three weeks, that what Q does is of no relevance or importance to him.

“I thought you and him had something going on.” He pauses. “Most of Six thought you and him had something going on.”

Yes, James has been aware of that since the beginning. He’s not sure how the staff of a spy agency thought they were keeping secrets from a spy, but after two visits to Q-Branch, he’d worked out exactly what all the giggling was for as it followed him to Q’s desk.

“Well, Q isn’t interested,” James says.

“Oh?” Alec’s eyes glint. “And how would you know that.”

“Because we’re friends, and we’ve had many adult conversations, including those that make it clear he isn’t interested.” James doesn’t want to mention Q’s engagement, not knowing whether Q wants that to be public knowledge. He thinks they’re friends, still, although there have been more than a couple of awkward conversations since the night in the workshop, and friends don’t spill secrets.

“Sure,” Alec says, in the most unconvinced tone James has ever heard, but he drops the topic.

Most of the afternoon is spent training with Agent Bobby Carter, sparring in the gym until they’re both sweating and panting.

“God, I need a shower,” Bobby says. She tucks her legs underneath her and lies on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, which makes James laugh.

He strides over to grab his water and chugs the whole thing, wiping an arm over his forehead. “I should shower, too. I’ve got a dinner event tonight.”

“Ooh.” Bobby wiggles her eyes at him, and from this upside down angle it’s ridiculous. “Got a date?”

James hums, noncommittally, and Bobby grins even wider. Luckily, James is saved by the arrival of R at the door to the gym.

“Well, I have got a date,” Bobby says, bouncing to her feet with a new wave of energy. “So I’ll be off now. Ta-ra, Jamsie, hope you get lucky!”

“Fuck off,” James says, tone friendly. He grins at Bobby and raises a hand towards R in greeting.

“I am!” Bobby calls over her shoulder, and disappears out into the corridor with her girlfriend.

James goes home after than, because it’s already late, and he does need to shower and change, and make sure he looks presentable enough to satisfy the sort of people who’ll be attending. His suit and shoes are black, with a white shirt underneath, and he’s tied a black silk bowtie around his collar. If the silver circle cufflinks have a connection to Six, just in case, no one needs to know.

He arrives at the Everleighs’ an hour after the party officially started, fashionably late in an effort to reduce the amount of making-nice he’s obliged to do with the other guests. Upon his entry, there is a flurry of rushed greetings, and then he’s led towards a room that John tells him is the library.

“Beatrice is terrifically excited to meet you,” John says, “but she might be a bit shy. Don’t worry, she’ll soon warm up to you.”

James smiles back and nods, but his suspicions settle in the top of his spine.

Then John opens the door and James is swept inside.

Something sparks like flint on the edge of James’ mind, but he’s not fast enough to catch the specific connection. Even still, it’s not hard for him to see that the woman sat on the couch in a purple dress and flower hairpieces is not comfortable in the slightest.

“Miss Everleigh, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” James bends a little at the waist, in a shadow of a bow. He has so many years of practise at performing this role.

For one frozen moment, no one says anything. Beatrice stares with a fixed smile on her lips and fear in her eyes and James doesn’t dare move.

Amanda shifts, and Beatrice flinches. It’s the tiniest movement, a whisper of cloth, but James sees it.

“Sir, you have the advantage of me,” Beatrice says, her voice breathy and strangely pitched. 

“Ah, you must excuse my lack of manners. My name is Bond, James Bond.”

Almost as though James is imagining it, Beatrice’s demeanour shifts for a single heartbeat into something more sarcastic, but then James blinks and she looks just as poised and frightened has she had before.

James turns to John. “Would you permit us some time to get to know each other?”

“Of course,” John says with a smile, but he shoots a dark look at Beatrice before he and Amanda leave the room.

James closes the door, and then sits on the armchair across from the couch, leaning forwards and propping his elbows on his knees.

“Are you okay?” He asks first. “What’s wrong?”

Beatrice’s eyes — blue, and so familiar — go wide, and then she buries her face in her hands.

“Shit,” Q’s voice says from somewhere, and James starts.

* * *

“Shit,” Q says, in his normal voice. He can’t do this. 

James came into the room, watched for five seconds, and has already decided that something is wrong. He’s sat a safe distance away, watching someone he thinks is a stranger with earnest eyes, willing to help.

When he looks up, Bond looks utterly baffled.

“Beatrice, are you okay?”

“Don’t call me that,” Q says, before he can think. 

Bond’s face cycles through a series of expressions that Q can’t pin down. Then: “Q?”

Q turns away before he says, “Yes.”

After a long pause, Bond says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“It’s fine.” Q’s been uncomfortable far longer than Bond has been in the house; it’s not his fault.

“John and Amanda said their daughter was at uni.” Bond pauses. “Would you like my jacket?”

It takes a great effort for Q to turn around and nod. Bond shucks his suit jacket immediately and leans just close enough to hand it over, then retreats to his armchair again.

Q pulls the jacket on and tugs it close over his body. It smells like men’s cologne, like Bond’s cologne, and he almost cries with it. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Q says.

“You’re not obliged to tell anyone anything,” Bond says, barely even taking time to draw breath before the words fall out of his mouth. “You don’t have to explain anything to me now. I’ll leave and I’ll forget this ever happened, and—”

“No,” Q says. He gets a hold of himself before he can say ‘please don’t leave me here’, but he still ends up saying. “Don’t go.”

Bond doesn’t move. “Okay. What do you want to do?”

Q looks up at him, at this man he’s spent the past year flirting with, who has seen him here in this dress, in the name his parents stuck him with, and not even blinked, and he shakes.

“My parents don’t know,” he says. Bond doesn’t say anything, just watches and gives Q space, because he is a good man, no matter how much blood he has on his hands. “It’s enough of a disgrace that they think I’ve got a normal job, let alone that I’m trans.”

He hasn’t said it out loud in years. He’d told one person in sixth form, three in university, and R when they were lowly minions in Q-Branch, right at the start of his career. HR knew, too, which had required forms rather than verbal discussion, and even that had been terrifying enough.

“I’m not a girl,” Q says, viciously. “I hate these stupid dresses and shoes and make up and I hate my parents.” He stops.

Bond nods. “I thought there was something wrong.”

Q feels like he’s missed a step on the stairs, a horrible swoop in his stomach. He thought Bond was understanding, didn’t think he was wrong or broken, but….

“I knew there was something up with John,” Bond says. Q stares at him, but Bond is staring at the empty fireplace. “Do they hit you?”

“Not me,” Q whispers.

“But they hit Anthony,” Bond says. It’s not a question. Then he sits up. “You’re not engaged.”

Q blinks, blindsided by the change in conversation. “Not yet.”

Bond grins, a wicked edge to it, and a familiar thrill runs through Q. If he tries, he can pretend they’re in Six, and he’s wearing trousers and a tie, and they’re flirting just like they have been for so long. 

While Q hesitates, Bond slips from the armchair to the couch, and slides within easy touching distance.

“So you’re still available.”

Q hasn’t quite caught up with where Bond is going. “Until my parents manage to marry me off.”

“Ah, but they want you married to me,” Bond says, voice low. “And I think I’m of a similar mind.”

“You’re still interested?” The realisation strikes him suddenly, finally catching up. “Even now you know?”

“You’re the only person I’ve ever been interested in, Q,” Bond says. 

Q reaches out to him, catches the cotton of his shirt in one hand.

“Let me help you get that lipstick off?” Bond asks, leaning in, and Q grins.

“Please,” he says, and slots their lips together.

* * *

Later, when they’ve both suffered through the party, James sat as close to Q as elbow room will allow at dinner and the two of them spending the rest of the night far closer than propriety allows, Q will take James out to say goodbye. James will kiss lips that have no trace of lipstick left on them, and after, with their foreheads press together, he’ll whisper something that makes Q laugh, safe out of the house and in James’ arms.

“We’ll wear matching suits for the wedding, and if your parents complain, I’ll shoot them.”

**Author's Note:**

> Keep notes:  
> \--they're both bloody toffs but at least they're decent people  
> \--Alec leave the poor man alone  
> \--Meet Agent Roberta Carter she's my favourite and I love her very much thank you we deserve more lesbians  
> \--I can't believe Carter called Bond 'Jamsie' and lived. (also ft: in which I accidentaly fall in love with an oc that's had approx. two lines of dialogue so far)  
> \--fuck john and amanda  
> \--Bond says trans rights babey


End file.
